Collaboration aims to help countries reduce threat to biodiversity from alien species

Hyderabad, India – The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) has joined in the official launch of a new partnership to provide the information needed to tackle the threat of invasive alien species.

GBIF was among six organizations to sign a memorandum of cooperation to set up a Global Invasive Alien Species Information Partnership (GIASIP). The signing took place at a launch event during the 11th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP11), being held in Hyderabad, India.

The event heard details of the proposed activities of the partnership, whose mission is to maximize the ability of countries to access, exchange, analyse and effectively apply the information and informatics tools needed to prevent, eradicate and control invasive alien species.

Among the proposals is an online gateway, now in pilot phase, bringing together a wide range of information including species lists, scientific articles and shared experiences relating to the issue of invasive alien species.

Presentations given at the event can be downloaded here.

The executive secretary of GBIF, Donald Hobern, signed the memorandum alongside the executive secretary of the CBD, Braulio Dias.

Dias said the partnership was an important initiative towards implementation of the Strategic Plan on Biodiversity 2011-20, agreed in 2010 with the aim of halting biodiversity loss.

Donald Hobern commented, “GBIF is very excited by this partnership. It is an opportunity to collaborate in delivering a comprehensive package of information on invasive alien species that will be a great help to decision makers around the world.”

The partnership developed following a workshop on managing information on invasive alien species, held at the headquarters of the GBIF Secretariat in September 2011.

The operational plan is available for download here (.doc, 167 KB).

Apart from GBIF, the other partners signing the memorandum with the CBD Secretariat were:

CABI Invasive Species Compendium
IUCN Species Survival Commission
Natural History Museum, London
Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris
Young Naturalist Network (Indian NGO – no website available)

The following organizations had already signed the memorandum before the launch event:
Fishbase
The Horus Insitute
Anatrack Ltd

For more information please contact:

Samy Gaiji
GBIF Secretariat
sgaiji@gbif.org

Tim Hirsch
GBIF Secretariat
thirsch@gbif.org